Feb 22, 2012

Pinterest has inspired me to incorporate surfboards into my practice! Haha, no. Pinterest is the fastest-growing social media site ever. Which you know because you're on it! Everyone is on it. But not everyone knows quite what to "do" with it (how many followers do you have with 0 pins and 0 likes?)

Pinterest is the Internet's virtual pinboard, with everyone tacking up--"pinning"--their interests. It's completely photo-based, lending itself to pretty photos of "things": things to buy, things to cook, places to visit. It looks like a shopping list for your dream shopping spree, which can leave people who aren't jazzed about finding the exact right lilac-and-honey-themed centerpiece for their table, or redoing the bathtub in spanish tile at a loss for how to use the site for themselves.

There is a joke somewhere in here about how Pinterest = Goop, and I will get back to you just as soon as I've worked out that punchline.

I am terrible at many things. Like Calculus (only subject I ever almost failed. If I had been better at it I might be splitting atoms right now instead of talking about Journey songs). Pushups. Basketball. Also chess, but that's because it's impossible for me to go about anything in a roundabout way.

I am also terrible at painting my fingernails. Terrible with both hands! I always end up looking like I used a paint roller to do it while I was having some kind of seizure. So I always leave them bare. But I read so many fashion magazines that I feel like I'm not completely put together. Like, outfit-minus-one. It's the one thing I'm bad at that I have a little bit of a complex about (well, the Calculus too, but only sometimes). Are grown-up put-together ladies looking at my fingers and saying, "oh the outfit looked so good but...missed it by an inch"?

Feb 21, 2012

A while back I completely blew off a one-word text from a guy I have every reason to think is a decent human being. I rationalized it by telling myself that "sup?" does not a conversation make. Since this is a guy I don't really know too well, I'm pretty certain that's that. So now I'm a huge jerk! And the truth is, if he did text me again? There's no way I'd answer, since who keeps after a jerk who blows them off?

Feb 16, 2012

Everyone, I think it's time we got out. When Planned Parenthood (and also Nancy Pelosi) tweeted that photo of a sausage fest testifying to congress about women's rights to have control over their own bodies, I was so speechless with rage I almost clawed my own eyes out. Self harm! It's no good. Look, we've tried. We marched, we yelled, we begged we pleaded, we cajoled and we patiently explained. And after a hundred years a group of men sit in front of the body that will determine whether women have a right to take medicine, and everybody's all, "U mad?"

I think it's time to put that plan into action...you know, the one we were talking about the last time we were drinking whiskey and braiding each other's hair? Let's find whatever moon colony plans Newt Gingrich has been able to work on and steal them to build our own feminists-only moonbase.

I acknowledge how Ayn Rand/John Galt-y this plan is. But read what I wrote up there in the beginning. Self harm! A hundred years and we're back outside banging on the doors? And nobody can even conceive how that might be a problem? We need to just gather our bats and gloves--and uteri since that's all anybody cares about ever!--and get out of Dodge.

Feb 13, 2012

Have you checked your Facebook messages today? Oh you have? Have you checked the OTHER messages today? You know, the secret ones that Facebook doesn't give you alerts for?

Over a year ago, Facebook changed the messages function, sorting all incoming messages and sending them to one of two inboxes: those they determine are "meaningful," like messages from people you're already friends with or pages with whom you interact a lot, go in the main inbox and you get an alert. Messages from people you aren't friends with or don't interact with as much get thrown into a bottomless void they've labeled "Other." And you don't get an alert. Which, on the surface, seems like a decent idea. Who cares that the 1000-miles-away-museum you Liked after vacation last year is having a canned food drive?

But two things suck about this: One, that to my knowledge Facebook didn't bother to let people know that their messages were being sorted this way. Two, that not only can you not change the sorting preferences so that more messages go into the main box, but you can't even automatically display the "Other" submailbox in your home screen. Which, since you don't get alerts that you have a new message in a box you can't see, means that you have to remind yourself to physically go looking for possible messages whenever you log onto Facebook.

So, what did you find when you checked out your hidden messages? Anything good? Because I found a BOY.

Feb 5, 2012

We all know about The Artist by now, yeah? The one that keeps winning awards everywhere? The one everyone keeps assuming you've seen but you actually haven't because you're embarrassed to admit (even to yourself) that you're one of those Philistines who's still going "gah, a silent film?" That one. Go see it. It's fantastic! It's great and funny and clever and awesome. It's even more awesome surounded by the elderly in the middle of the afternoon.

I have this weird affection for going to movies in the middle of the day, at an independent theater that's largely membership-based and has cheap popcorn, so I usually find myself the youngest person in the semi-crowded theater by about 40 years. It's the Pre-Early-Bird Special Sweet Spot. This came in very handy when I saw Midnight in Paris and everyone was "quietly whispering to each other (ahem)" the names of all the historical figures that kept popping up. People chatter during movies anyway, loudly or not; sometimes it's quirky and interesting to have a side commentary rolling, and when it's not the loudness of the movie will usually drown it out.

Jan 31, 2012

Hey kids! Greetings from the past--the probably distant past. There's been a lot of talk lately among the other grownups at work about lying to their kids. Probably since it was recently the holidays and you know how people get all tore up about the ethics of Elf on the Shelf. Anyway, the conversation always wanders over into drugs and alcohol territory, and what they'll tell their kids when they ask what their parents did. And that's when your old ma gets to put on her smug face--a face you know well!

You see, your mom is thrilled that she finally has an advantage to being a turbo dorkasaurus all those years. I can still have the moral high ground and never have to worry about lying to you at all.

Jan 12, 2012

Dear Grownups of The Internet, such as you are: you're driving me crazy over a 14-year old girl. Because I agree with you but you are going about this the completely wrong way.

A pretty horrible video went viral a few days ago, but the thing has legs and it just won't stop. The message is undeniably awful. Taylor doesn't like that GSUSA includes trans girls. She argues that it creates a safety hazard, which is horrifying, because the only safety hazard I can see is the personal safety of trans girls among people who think the things in the video. She laments the death of "a place to be yourself and who you are, and not something you are not," which, ironically, is exactly the environment being created by letting both cis and transgendered children be what they are. She clearly doesn't understand that a trans girl IS A GIRL. Her video was co-opted by HonestGirlScouts.com, a bunch of horrible adults for whom the trans issue is tangential to their larger goal of hating Planned Parenthood and the UN(?) but, you make your bigoted hay while the sun shines, right? She calls for a boycott of Girl Scout Cookies to protest equality and inclusion, thus ensuring that cookie sales this year will be gangbusters in counter-protest. Every Girl Scout I see will be selling me as many boxes as all the money in my wallet will buy.

The reactions are shrill: Jezebel calling her "Stepford-esque." Gawker being, well, Gawker. But even Elephant Journal got snarky! The video is private now, presumably because of all the vitriol she suddenly found flying in her direction--surprise! All appropriate reactions if this were, say, an old lady ranting at a Tea Party rally that Obama wants to force everyone to have abortions so he can sell the stem cells to China.

A recent article, "How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body" focuses on the risks of bending and twisting, and injuries that can come from yoga. Hip replacements! Fractured ribs! Strokes! And, yes, it is all very scary. Even I clicked on it because obviously if I'm doing something that's going to kill me, I want to know about it. I might decide to go ahead and roll the dice on it, but hey, informed consent and all that.

Scary headline aside, the gist of the article is that doing yoga WRONG can harm you:

In one case, a male college student, after more than a year of doing
yoga, decided to intensify his practice. He would sit upright on his
heels in a kneeling position known as vajrasana for hours a day,
chanting for world peace. Soon he was experiencing difficulty walking,
running and climbing stairs.

Hours! Of course he hurt himself. There are also examples of people straining necks and backs by "throwing themselves into twists." What!

Dec 23, 2011

The neti pot has been getting a lot of press lately, mostly from Health Department Warnings about it because three people got brain amoebas from using them and died horrifically. Brain amoebas! I always thought if my neti pot killed me it would be by me accidentally drowning myself. However, it's not the neti pot itself that gives people brain amoebas, it's the act of getting water up your nose if that water happens to already contain a brain amoeba.

SO! Absolutely use distilled or treated water in your neti pot. And still use it, unless you're too afraid, because it's awesome.

Because, turns out there are lots and lots of ways to get water up your nose! Here are some things to be afraid of:

Where did the brain amoeba come from? When will it get its own horror franchise? Is this new? Is it global warming/smiting (depending upon your relationship to logic/god), or is it the beginning of the zombie apocalypse? And should we just wear nose plugs everywhere, forever?

So uploading videos of you giving your kids crap gifts is a thing now? Please. PLEASE. People, my parents are the hipsters of crap gifts: they were doing it WAY before it was cool. And man were they good at it--your half-eaten baloney sandwich is great and all, but, grasshopper, you have much to learn.

Not to say every gift was horrible--the stunningly out-of-left-field bagpipe chanter remains the Greatest Unasked-For Gift in history. But in our house Christmas was always a time of year for brilliant psychological warfare.

Dec 20, 2011

If there is ever a magical future version of Camelot, where brave knights achieve great feats and go on heroic quests to earn their place at the renowned Round Table and sit beside their sovereign as equals, they will not get in by slaying dragons or finding swords in lakes. NO, all the knights will be ladies, and those ladies will have successfully bought a pair of boots.

Women's boot shopping is the modern-day equivalent of the Hero's Quest: you will face great odds, there will be many trials, you will doubt yourself and your god--it is the most frustrating and often demoralizing experience on Earth.

This is because boots are not created to be worn by any living woman, ever. They are made for martians with very large, very flat feet and teeny-tiny, reed-thin calves! Calves that are so thin (I imagine) they would snap if forced to bear any weight. At any given moment of the day, there are no less than three women sitting in shoe stores with puzzled looks on their faces and boots zipped only as far as their ankles. Seriously WHO are these women zipping up some of these boots? Anyone who has ever worn a heel before has a calf muscle.

Dec 9, 2011

Dear Santa, for Christmas this year will you bring me an Ikea Boyfriend?

I'm starting to realize that my job/schedule/lifestyle/selfishness/compulsion to eat peanut butter straight from the jar precludes my having the full on boyfriend-boyfriend experience. Yes, this is largely the same logic I use, re: a dog. Which is fine, I like my unwavering devotion to working out every day and the fact that there are no Doritos in my house. Besides, holiday parties, cold winter nights, shoveling out from under two feet of snow? All things that would be made unbearably worse if there was a significant other tagging along, no?

What I want is a man-person whose sole responsibility is to come with me when I go to Ikea: an Ikea Boyfriend. Because Ikea is a place you really shouldn't go to without a partner.

Okay, sometimes being the only single person in Ikea is fun. You can give smug looks to the young couple arguing over "but WHICH throw pillow covers!" Smug looks that say, "well, I guess there are three of us who definitely aren't getting laid tonight! But at least I can buy whichever throw pillow cover I darn well please."

Nov 22, 2011

That was what you would have heard if you had heard us talking outside the theater after the screening of The Muppets, all of us mid-to late twenties or early thirties. We had been Muppet fans as kids of course, but none of us had the perfect-excuse-to-be-at-a-PG movie (a child). We did have the second best, though: "I got these tickets from work and this is a station screening so I am at work right now." While we were waiting for it to start, we chatted about the movies we'd recently seen. This involved a stilted discussion of Shame that had to be conducted completely in euphemisms, because we were surrounded by 8-year-olds. Although I suspect they know what johnson means. So basically, we had our world-weary cynicism jackets on, and zipped up to our necks. One of us even had a moment of: merciful god, this is a musical wtf. Brr.

We were worried for a second there: when the trailer came out with its jokes about fart shoes, we started to get worried.

Nov 15, 2011

Between Immortals winning the box office and the trailer for Mirror Mirror, that other Snow White movie, hitting the internet today, director Tarsem Singh is having a moment. I love this man, he makes absolutely gorgeous movies.

I knew I was going to see Immortals as soon as it opened, even if the reviews weren't great, because I knew it would look phenomenal, and I wanted it to be ten feet tall in front of me--and in 3D! Whatever else is ever said about Tarsem Singh, the man knows how to take a freakin' picture. Every shot of Immortals was intricate and beautiful. Even the gore was exquisite (And the 3D is great for a change).

Yes, Roger Ebert was right, Immortals is "the best looking awful movie you will ever see." For the record I didn't think it was awful, but it isn't great. What IS great, and also exquisite, and also phenomenal, is another Tarsem Singh movie, The Fall.

Nov 3, 2011

People go on vacations to do things they don't get to do in their everyday life. Climb mountains. Snorkel the reefs. Run with the Bulls. Finally have good diction when they're slowly shouting English phrases at people in foreign countries.

What do you go on vacation to do? I take baths.

I live in a studio apartment which has a walk-in closet and as a trade off, a tiny bathroom. It's practically a ship's head. Every year I work at Campout for Hunger and I'm always amazed that the RV's bathroom is bigger than mine. Actually, last year the RV had more square feet than my apartment and I thought about just living in Wal Mart parking lots because at least the RV had a washer-dryer. But my tiny bathroom has a very small shower that some gentlemen callers have not been able to shower properly in, and no tub. So no baths.

But but but where do you go to cry with wine, you're asking? I know, I KNOW. I have to have my good cries on the sofa like a ridiculous person.

Let's all hang out with Mindy Kaling and cry about stuff! That's what girl friends do when they hang out, right? I'm a little out of practice. How glad are you that Glamour.com and Crown, the publisher and now NPR have excerpts of Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me posted? Now you can have all the fun for free that everyone else who has hard-cover-book-amounts-of-money gets to have! (Obviously you'll buy the book eventually, but you just can't right now and why do things have to cost money and not charm?)

So, in the NPR excerpt, "Non-Traumatic Things That Have Made Me Cry," Mindy confirms two things that I have always believed to be true: it is impossible not to have a huge crush on Colin Firth, and everyone gets misty at the part in Bridget Jones' Diary when Mark Darcy says, "I like you. Very much. Just as you are." But, um, the second thing maybe not for the same reason?

Nov 1, 2011

1. Bring it in to work--If you do this you'll still eat most of it yourself since you will spontaneously have ninety reasons to walk right by the lunchroom. And also, won't your coworkers be thinking, "these 50,000 calories aren't good enough for her but she's fine with all of us putting on ten pounds?" Faux pas.

2. Throw it out--Waste! Your mother never took your advice to just mail your leftover peas to Those Poor Starving Girls In China, so they're probably still starving. And we just hit 7 billion people, so we should probably start hoarding resources, even if those resources are Reese's Cups.

Oct 27, 2011

A friend from work was asking me about trying out yoga, and my first thought after "Yes! Definitely do that!" was, "you should read my blog, I write about yoga all the time!" And then I remembered that most of my posts about yoga involve failure and existential woe. Not a great way to convince someone how awesome it can be, is it? You know me, though, always looking on the bright side and all that. So, for her, for anyone thinking of trying yoga on for size who hasn't been sacred away by all my talk of handstands and circus freaks, behold: Your Yoga Virgin Pep Talk.

My first yoga experience was a "Yoga for Dummies" DVD the summer after my freshman year of college (I know, I KNOW but it helped me lose my freshman 15...and also the other 15). You can definitely pregame with the Exercise OnDemand videos your cable offers; there's bound to be a beginner yoga video in there somewhere. You'll get to know what the poses are called, but no one is there to check your form, so really the best way is to go to a class. Classes can be intimidating! There might be chanting that you may or may not know how to feel about! But there are four things you can keep in mind to help you feel more at ease your first time.